


Dregs

by hes5thlazarus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood Mages, Chantry Issues, Dragon Age II - Act 3, Friendship, Gen, Hawke (Dragon Age) Sided with Mages, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29448507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: Anders baits Varric, or Varric baits Anders, both drunk at the Hanged Man. There's no resolution to an argument when they're both just angry, thinking about dead mages.
Relationships: Anders & Varric Tethras
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Dregs

They were drinking and it wasn’t going well. Hawke had already left, pissed off at Fenris’ rant about the Viscount’s complicity with the Tevinter slave trade, as if any of them could do anything about it, and Fenris was sulking in the corner by himself. Donnic was slumped in his chair, hand loosely wrapped around a dirty glass of whiskey. All glasses Norah gave him were dirty. She didn’t like guards much. Varric kept talking hopelessly, trying to improve the mood of the party, but even retelling the story about Bartrand’s aborted wedding failed to provoke hilarity. Anders continued to glare, eyes glinting slightly, and kept drinking. He was blatantly ignoring him. At least Donnic tried to grunt at the appropriate parts, and Varric had long since given up at getting Fenris to rejoin their table.   
  
Varric stopped himself and decided a new tactic was in order. Baiting Anders was always worth a laugh, so he pointed his chin at him and snapped his fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention. “Blondie, what’s up? What’s with all the sighing and the glaring and the doom and gloom? Templar step on your tail?”   
  
Anders drew himself up in his chair. “I wish you wouldn’t joke about that.” He took Donnic’s glass from him. Donnic blinked at him and blearily protested, but Anders drank it regardless. Varric was amused. He was pretty sure Norah spat in that.   
  
“Right. The sighing? The templar? Or the tail? You’ll have to be specific.” Varric wasn’t in the mood to be easygoing anymore--he’d been trying to cheer them up all night, and they could at least return with a story.   
  
“Evelina,” he says. “Huon. I knew them, you know. And they were better than what became of them. They weren’t-- _ blood mages _ . They were desperate! They were scared. They missed their families. They deserved  _ help _ , not Tranquility. Not death. Not the templars. They deserved  _ more _ . So, I guess you’re right.” He stares at his empty drink bitterly. “‘Templar step on your tail’--what  _ haven’t _ they stepped on?”   
  
Varric is only temporarily speechless. Anders never has anything good to say, he shouldn’t have asked, at least not without Isabela gone, she could normally get him to laugh. Varric personally thinks the ending is a little too depressing, he gets tired of the constant misery of the mages--and the templars made her Tranquil because she was going to turn into an abomination, she was already using blood magic. He’ll have to write it cleaner than it happened, because yet another Tranquil blood magic lacked the tragic punch.    
  
Varric says, “Well, shit. That’s crazy. That’s how it goes sometimes.”   
  
“ _ All _ the time,” Anders hisses, and reaches for Varric’s drink. Varric stops his hand warily.   
  
“Buy your own,” Varric said. “This round’s on you.” Anders, unimpressed, gets up and goes to the bar. Donnic raises his head, tired.   
  
“Careful,” he says. “Don’t bait him too much.”   
  
Varric snorts. “Or else? I get a fireball to the face?”   
  
Donnic says, “No. You can only push someone so far before they break.” He drops a couple coins on the table. “Get your last round on me.” He leaves, stumbling only slightly, and Varric marvels at his perspicacity. Donnic does like his one-liners--the man’s so anodyne, he has to spice him up when he finishes  _ Hard in Hightown _ . Aveline already forbade him from writing about anything interesting, since her investigations into the corruption of the guard were still ongoing. He shakes his head at the exit. Donnic, what would they all do without Donnic? Live exactly the same as they did without him--and for that blessed quality of irrelevance, he has to write a story about him.   
  
Anders returns to the table and sets down his whiskey. Varric squints at him.   
  
“You sure you should be drinking that?” he says. “Don’t want Justice taking control.”   
  
“You were laughing,” Anders says. “What were you laughing about?”   
  
Varric sighs. He gets that watching what happened to those Circle mages bothered him, it bothered him too, but Varric knows all too well that sometimes you just have to breathe and let it pass, because there’s no use obsessing over the past. He glances at his crossbow, which he had given its own chair: perhaps he’s a hypocrite. He’s a lot of things--but he’s not paranoid, and he doesn’t want to deal with this.    
  
Varric says, “Oh, you know, everything. Donnic. You. The same old stories shaking out the same. You and me bristling over a drink. What to talk about between disasters. The usual shtick.”   
  
Anders drops into his chair suddenly, so fast Varric reaches for Bianca. “Oh,” he says. “So glad you can find the humor in it. I guess it’s easy to laugh when you’re not in it.”   
  
Varric scowls. “Not in it? Blondie, I live here.” He gestures grandly, to try and take the sting out of his tone.   
  
“Don’t be obtuse,” Anders says. “You know what I mean.”   
  
“I know I’ve lived here longer than you,” Varric says testily. “Not getting nativist. But I know this city’s problems. Been stuck in the muck of it longer than you have, Blondie. By a good thirty years.”   
  
Anders’ eyes flash, Justice peeking through. He snaps,“That is not what I mean and you are deliberately misunderstanding me.” Varric raises a hand wearily, glancing to see who has taken notice. A few apostates in the corner are watching, but they’re friendly with the Mage Underground, so that’s fine. Fenris looks up, eyes narrow, but Varric shakes his head at him. Anders isn’t going to blow up in public, at least not tonight. He’s prone to picking fights, but Varric’s not going to fall for it.   
  
“Sure,” Varric says. “Tell me what I’m deliberately misunderstanding.”   
  
Anders flashes, “Don’t  _ patronize _ me.”   
  
“Okay,” he says. “I’m not. Sorry.” He reaches for Anders’ drink. He really doesn’t need more liquor in him, and Varric’s got money and the influence that comes with money, but not even the Merchants’ Guild can bribe Meredith to look the other way if Anders goes on a Justice-rampage in the middle of the Hanged Man. Donnic is at least gone--they’ve put him and Aveline in enough difficult spots, lately. Sometimes Varric wonders if Hawke realizes how stressful it is, being their friend. Varric grimaces and sips at the whiskey. It’s alright for what it is. He’s fine with it.   
  
Anders says, “You don’t know what it’s like, to be hunted. For people to want to-- _ lobotomize _ you, just for existing. That people think there’s something fundamentally evil about you, just because you--see things and feel things!” His voice breaks, and he says raggedly, “The Maker  _ made _ me this way, Varric. He made us like this. Don’t tell me you know what it’s like. To be made to be punished.”   
  
Varric says, “Well, shit. You  _ are _ drunk. Let’s get you out of here.”   
  
“Fuck you,” Anders says. “Really, from the bottom of my heart. Fuck you.”   
  
Varric scowls. “Cool it, mage. I get you’re upset about your friends being Tranquil, and yeah, it sucks, but what did you think was going to happen? They ran away from  _ Meredith _ , they were dealing with demons, and that Huon guy put the whole alienage in danger, coming back to his wife. It was fucked up. You gotta admit that.”   
  
“That his family loved him and wanted him safe?” Anders says. “What’s so fucked up about that? You think Nyssa wasn’t elated when he came back? She’d been smuggling--” He stops himself, and Varric realizes that there is a story there, there is something he’s not saying, there is something he probably shouldn’t know. “But sure, think what you like. Write it whatever way that makes you happy. Crazed blood mage beating his wife. Clinging Ferelden refugee selfishly taking care of two orphans. Compassion’s just a despair demon, after all. Hope is really just pride. And Justice? That’s just vengeance. As we don’t deserve any recompense. No, forgive and forget, that’s what you want. Reconciliation. Compromise by surrendering all of our rights.”   
  
Varric says, “What the fuck is your problem? I haven’t said any of that shit. I have been nothing but a friend to you. Sure, I think you’re crazy. Bit of an asshole too, and I don’t even pretend to get that Fade shit you got going on with Justice. But you do good work in Darktown and you don’t get in the way of my business, and that’s fine for Kirkwall. I want what’s good for Kirkwall. I don’t get what you mean by ‘compromise,’ forgiving and forgetting. I just want the job fucking done. And your job--you take care of the refugees. No one else does that. You take care of Hawke and keep the rest of us patched up. That’s nice too. But get out of my face with this pity-me bullshit.” He says that, and realizes that perhaps he is drunk too: well, shit. He tries to roll it back. “Let’s get you back to the clinic, you’re drunk.”   
  
Anders says, “And you’re not?”   
  
Varric says, “Your point?”   
  
Anders settles back in his chair and crosses his arms. Justice has left his eyes now, and he smiles grimly at him. “No fucking need. You made it for me.”   
  
Varric stares at him and considers violence, considers stomping all the way to Hightown and shaking Hawke for sticking him with this mule disguised as a man. He throws his hands. “Right! So glad to help.” He shakes his head. “You’re impossible, do you know that? Fucking impossible sometimes.”   
  
“Yeah,” Anders says. “So I’ve been told.”


End file.
